Scottish Literary Calendar: October
Epigraph:
For soon the winter of the year
And age, life’s winter, will appear
The Birks of Invermay
1|10|1834 Mary McKellar, bard of the Camerons, born, Fort William.|2.1001.01(LS)
1|10|1906 John Lorne Campbell, eminent folklorist, born. |2.1001.02(LS)
2|10|1841 James Fraser, the Edinburgh-born publisher of Fraser’s Magazine, dies, possibly from blows delivered by an author, Grantley Berkeley MP, outraged by a review which Fraser had published of his novel Berkeley Castle; Berkeley subsequently shot the reviewer (William McGinn) in a duel.|2.1002.01(LS)
2|10|1852 Thomas Thomson, the Edinburgh antiquary, dies. 2.1002.02(LS)
2|10|1854 Patrick Geddes, environmentalist and author, born, Ballater, Aberdeen-shire. He was a disciple of Ruskin who was one of the first to write about city development.|2.1002.03(LS)
3|10|1721 John Skinner, songwriter, born at Balfour, Aberdeenshire |2.1003.01(LS)3|10|1916 James Herriott (James Alfred Wight), author and graduate of the Glasgow ‘Vet’ School, born |2.1003.02(LS)
4|10|1821 John Rennie, civil engineer and diarist dies.|2.1004.01(LS)
4|10|1864 William Tait (1793-1864), publisher of the Edinburgh Magazine, dies.|2.1004.02(LS)
5|10|1721 (Rev) William Wilkie, the Scottish ‘Homer’, born Dalmeny.|2.1005.01(LS)
5|10|1772 John Wilkes, editor of The North Briton, admitted as a burgess of Inveraray |2.1005.02(LS)
6|10|1773 John MacCulloch, author and geologist, born.|2.1006.01(LS)
6|10|1907 David Masson, biographer, dies, Edinburgh |2.1006.02(LS)
**7|10|1849 Edgar Allan Poe, the American novelist who went to school in Irvine, Ayrshire, dies.|2.1007.01(LS)**
7|10|1904 Isabella Bird (Bishop), author and traveller in the Rocky mountains and elsewhere, dies, Edinburgh.|2.1007.02(LS)
7|10|1907 Helen McInnes, novelist, born, Glasgow |2.1007.03(LS)
8|10|1773 Boswell and Johnson confined on Coll |2.1008.01(LS)
9|10|1782 William Nimmo, historian of the County of Stirlingshire, dies |2.1009.01(LS)
9|10|1843 The Music Hall, which housed lectures by Dickens and Thackeray, among others, was added to the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh.|2.1009.02(LS)
10|10|1802 Hugh Miller, self taught geologist and author, is born at Cromarty.|2.1010.01(LS)
10|10|1871 John Alexander Ferguson, dramatist and detective-story writer, born Callander, Perthshire. |2.1010.02(LS)
11|10|1994: James Kelman wins the Booker Prize with How Late It Was, How Late |2.1011.01(LS)
12|10|1875 Aleister Crowley, author, mountaineer, and occultist who once practised the black arts above Loch Ness, is born.|2.1012.01(LS)
12|10|1918 Dorothy K. Haynes (Gray), short-story writer, born Ayrshire.|2.1012.02(LS)
13|10|1797 William Motherwell, poet, born.|2.1013.01(LS)
13|10|1946 Helen Bannerman, author of Little Black Sambo, dies.|2.1013.02(LS)
14|10|1848 William Tennant, schoolmaster, professor and comic poet, dies, Dollar |2.1014.01(LS)
++15|10|1684 Allan Ramsay, wig-maker, bookseller and poet, is born in the mining village of Leadhills, Lanarkshire. He will found Britain’s first circulating library there in 1725. In the same year he will write his pastoral drama, The Gentle Shepherd which, together with his antholgies of Scottish poetry – Tea Table Miscellanies (1724-37) – will make him famous.|2.1015.01(LS)++
15|10|1831 Isabella Bird (Bishop) born |2.1015.02(LS)
15|10|1943 William Soutar, bedridden Perth poet, dies, aged 45. His moving Diaries of a Dying Man describe his final years.|2.1015.03(LS)
15|10|1986 First Scottish Book Fortnight begins.|2.1015.04(LS)
15|10|1998 Iain Crichton Smith, poet and novelist, dies Taynuilt, Argyll. His work, both in English and in Gaelic, is regarded as amongst the best of twentieth century Scottish literature. |2.1015.05(LS)
16|10|1996 Alan Massie, journalist and notable historical novelist, is born. |2.1016.01(LS)
16|10|1938 William MacLellan, publisher of Scottish poets, novelists and dramatists of the post-war years, dies Biggar.|2.1016.02(LS)
17|10|1774 Robert Fergusson, the Scottish poet regarded by leading critics as second only to Burns, dies, Edinburgh. |2.1017.01(LS)
++17|10|1826 Thomas Carlyle, historian, marries Jane Baillie Welsh, letter writer, at Templand, Dumfries-shire. It becomes the most spectacular of literary marriages. Samuel Butler (1835-1902) will observe: “It was very good of God to let Carlyle and Mrs Carlyle marry one another and so make only two people miserable instead of four, besides being very amusing.”|2.1017.02(LS)++
17|10|1921 George Mackay Brown, novelist and poet, born, Stromness, Orkney.|2.1017.03(LS)
18|10|1995 Tom Buchan, the poet-in-residence employed by ‘The Quality of Life Experiment’ in Dumbarton, dies, Forres |2.1018.01(LS)
19|10|1795 Robert Pollock, poet, is born, Eaglesham, Renfrewshire |2.1019.01(LS)
20|10|1937 Emma Tennant, novelist (The Strange Case of Ms Jekyll and Mrs Hyde [1989]), born, London. She will be brought up in Peebles-shire.|2.1020.01(LS)
20|10|1976 Jane Duncan (Elizabeth Cameron), prolific popular novelist, dies at Jemimaville, Ross-shire. |2.1020.01(LS)
21|10|1944 Anne Lorne Gillies, singer, folklorist, author of Song of Myself and Stevenson enthusiast born, Stirling |2.1021.01(LS)
22|10|1746 Hector Macneill, poet, born Roslin, Midlothian.|2.1022.01(LS)
22|10|1870 Lord Alfred Douglas, minor poet, born. He will become involved with Oscar Wilde. |2.1022.02(LS)
**22|10|1882 N.C.Wyeth, illustrator of Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped is born, Massachusetts |2.1022.03(LS)**
22|10|1970 Frank Fraser Darling, naturalist and author, dies, Forres.|2.1022.04(LS)
23|10|1773 Francis Jeffrey, critic, born, Edinburgh.|2.1023.01(LS)
23|10|1845 George Saintsbury, critic and literary historian, born. He will become a headteacher in Elgin where he keeps a record of the whiskys he drinks and begins his Notes on a Cellar Book.|2.1023.02(LS)
23|10|1881 John MacDougal Hay, author of the quintessentially Scottish novel, Gillespie (1914), is born, Tarbert, Loch Fyne, Argyllshire. |2.1023.03(LS)
23|10|1942 Douglas Dunn, poet, winner of the Whitbread Prize in 1985, born Inchinnan.|2.1023.04(LS)
23|10|1973 Douglas Young, poet and translator, dies.|2.1023.07(LS)
24|10|1765 Sir James Mackintosh, author and philosopher, born, Loch Ness.|2.1024.01(LS)
24|10|1829 John Veitch, author of The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry born, Peebles.|2.1024.02(LS)
25|10|1735 James Beattie, poet, born |2.1025.01(LS)
**25|10|1800 Thomas Babington Macaulay, historian and poet, born |2.1025.02(LS)
25|10|1915 Sidney Goodsir Smith (1915-75), eminent poet of the modern Scots Tongue, born, New Zealand.
26|10|1779 Henry Cockburn, diarist and judge, born.|2.1026.01(LS)
26|10|1845 Carolina Oliphant (Nairne), songwriter, dies Gask |2.1026.02(LS)
26|10|1911 Sorley Maclean, foremost twentieth century Gaelic poet, born Isle of Raasay; |2.1026.03(LS)
27|10|1736 James MacPherson, poet and translator, born, Ruthven, Inverness-shire. In 1760 he will publish Fragments of Ancient Poetry Collected in the Highlands of Scotland and Translated from the Gaelic or Erse Language, giving rise to the Ossian Controversy. |2.1027.01(LS)
27|10|1989 Allan Campbell Maclean, novelist, dies.|2.1027.02(LS)
28|10|1922 Clifford Hanley, novelist, is born in Glasgow. His classic account of his childhood Dancing in the Streets will appear in 1958.|2.1028.01(LS)
**29|10|1740 James Boswell, the first great biographer, born, Edinburgh.|2.1029.01(LS)**
29|10|1879 John Blackwood, publisher, dies.|2.1029.02(LS)
29|10|1916 Jessie Kesson, novelist, is born, Inverness. Her fiction, partly autobiographical, will provide vivid picture picture of working life in North East Scotland.|2.1029.03(LS)
30|10|1789 Michael Scott is born Cowlairs, Glasgow. His novel Tom Cringle’s Log (1834) will give a vivid account of the West Indies, and rank alongside Marryat’s sea-stories.|2.1030.02(LS)
30|10|1842 Allan Cunningham, Dumfries-shire poet and editor of Burns, dies, aged 57. |2.1030.02(LS)
30|10|1932 John MacGregor, Bard of the MacGregors, is buried, Balquhidder.|2.1030.02(LS)
30|10|1937 Sir Herbert Maxwell, Wigtownshire topograher, dies |2.1030.02(LS)
31|10|1875 Mrs. Black, Byron’s ‘Maid of Athens’, dies, aged 76. |2.1031.01(LS)
31|10|1931 Alastair Hetherington, journalist and broadcaster, born. |2.1031.02(LS)
Louis Stott Database: 69 entries Updated: 120898
